The Personality of India: Pre- and Proto-historic Foundation of India and Pakistan c14.s1.t7.115

c14.s1.t7.115

Curiously this story repeats itself with a slight variation in the coastal belt of South Gujarat. Here, we have a narrow strip of land between the saline wastes on the west and the hills in the east, with a number of Early Historic sites mostly of the Kshatrapa period. A few late Harappan sites have also been reported from the coastal strip. In a very interesting inscription, we find reference to a series of Brahmin settlements along the fords across the rivers of South Gujarat mentioned by Ushavadatta in his Nasik inscription. The possibility of the penetration of Central Indian influences through the Narbada and Tapi valleys is indicated by the ancient settlements of Broach on the Narbada and Kamrej on the Tapi. Near the hallowed town Kayavarohana of Lakulisa, the founder of the Lakulisa sect of Saivism, an excavation was conducted by Shri R. N. Mehta of the Baroda University at Timbarva.² Here the earliest phase is characterized by the N.B.P. and the black-and-red ware, and it underlay the deposits of the Kshatrapa period.